Motherwell manager Graham Alexander hailed Liam Grimshaw’s contribution as his side came from behind to win 2-1 at Livingston.
Grimshaw scored his first professional goal to add to Tony Watt’s strike earlier in the second half.
Livingston had gone in front through Alan Forrest but ended up slumping to their third straight Scottish Premiership defeat.
Grimshaw had only recently returned to the squad after eight months out with glandular fever and his manager could not have been happier for him.
He said: “The goal meant everything to us all. You could see the way the boys celebrated with him on the pitch. They are all over him in the dressing room.
“He’s a fantastic lad but, I’ll be honest, we didn’t expect him to come up with the winner. But he made a great run into the box off the blindside of his opponent and he gets his luck by getting into the right area.
“If we can get him three inches from the goal week in week out, he might have a chance to score more.”
Alexander felt his team had merited the win for their second-half comeback.
He added: “We were unfortunate to be behind at half-time. We had good spells in the first half.
“Their goal was a bolt out of the blue for us and we lost our discipline and shape after that.
“We reset at half-time and said to the boys there was a game for us to win – and we did it.
“Every credit to the players because I thought we deserved it over the 90 minutes.”
Livingston boss David Martindale pointed to a missed Nicky Devlin chance and some poor defending as the reasons for the loss.
He said: “I don’t think the way we defended our box today we deserved to take anything from the game if I’m honest. You can’t win games of football defending like that.
“The goals we gave away were far too cheap and I’m really disappointed in the defensive unit – not just the defenders – both from open play and set-plays.
“Anyone watching could see their gameplan was to put every single ball from anywhere in our half in our box and that’s what Motherwell did.
“I can fix it but as a group it’s not great to lose a game of football in that manner.
“Nicky Devlin has a chance in the second half from a fantastic bit of play that he’s got to score.”
